


The Hyacinth Girl

by nagi_schwarz



Category: Gilmore Girls, Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-08-22
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:50:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Winchester picks up on a poltergeist in Hartford, Connecticut that's haunting the house of one Paris Geller.  While Sam is on the case, he runs into a whirlwind of blue, gold, and plaid, Eliot's <i>The Waste Land</i>, and the complexities of hunters talking to girls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Super thanks to my amazing and talented artist [](http://twisted-slinky.livejournal.com/profile)[**twisted_slinky**](http://twisted-slinky.livejournal.com/) who helped make this big bang possible, who cheered me on and cheered me up. Thanks also to my lovely betas Aden, [](http://gluisa88.livejournal.com/profile)[**gluisa88**](http://gluisa88.livejournal.com/) , and my mom, and to [](http://reapertownusa.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://reapertownusa.livejournal.com/)**reapertownusa** for welcoming me to the fandom. (Also thanks to my mother-in-law, who loaned me her Gilmore Girls DVDs and made this madness possible.)

 

 

Hartford, Connecticut in the fall was the stuff of nineteenth century novels, a sea of leaves all the colors of Halloween dancing in the gutters like waves rising and falling in a chill breeze. It was well past midnight when John Winchester pulled up to the edge of an upscale neighborhood and cut the Impala’s headlights. Dean had taken the last driving shift and was asleep in the back seat. Sam, gifted with the rare chance to ride shotgun - even though he was old enough to drive and help hunt - peered out the window, careful not to let his breath fog the glass.

“I want to swing by the job site before we head for the motel,” John said.

Sam’s permission was irrelevant, but he said, “Yes, Sir,” anyway.

And the Impala rumbled forward, gliding along tree-lined avenues. Sam kept an eye on the street signs in case he had to find this place again, because the wrought-iron fences running along the sidewalks all looked the same to him. When John finally killed the engine, Sam saw a manicured lawn, shadowed and vast, edged with a stand of trees through which filtered golden light from a house of indeterminable but likely excessive size.

Sam glanced at his father. “How are you getting in there?”

“Owners are going through a messy divorce. Father’s moving out. Dean and I are posing as box jockeys.” John nodded at the gate, complete with intercom and state-of-the-art combination access box. They could have scaled the fence easily, but Sam knew a place this big and expensive would have multiple security levels.

“You think the man moving out disturbed a cursed object that woke up the poltergeist?” Sam asked.

John nodded, scanning the perimeter. “No one will pay attention to two blue collars schlepping boxes. We’ll get to see everything.”

Sam’s admiration of his father’s brilliance was tempered by his exasperation at his father’s cynicism. That Dean would have been equally enthusiastic about being nobody made Sam feel even worse.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked.

“Research. Get the schematics of the place. History - violent deaths, accidents, curses. You know the drill.”

Sam did. “Yes, Sir.”

John eased the car away from the curb and pulled back out onto the road, started for another seedy, dusty, human-stained motel for them to call home. They all had an early day tomorrow - school for Sam, and hunting for the rest.

 

Hartford Public High School was an urban teen zoo like the last half dozen Sam had enrolled in. He was an anonymous face in the crowd at best, a number at worst, and he drifted through the sea of students as a tall, narrow shadow, except for that brief moment at the beginning of each class where he had to stand in front, say his name, and confess there was nothing about him worth telling anyone. The school was an open campus, so for lunch Sam grabbed a hot dog from a street vendor and scouted out the locations of the city offices and the public library so he could buckle down for some hunting research after school.

His afternoon classes were another study in anonymity, and Sam thought his father would be pleased at how Sam managed to go unnoticed, given how tall he was. When the final bell rang, Sam waited until at least three other students rose before he stood as well and scooped up his books. His first stop was the public library to check the history of the house in question. He would head to the city building for blue prints, if necessary.

Sam had learned to marathon study early on; Dean had been more than glad to turn over research duties to Sam once Sam learned what John’s real job was. Dean’s attention span issues made it difficult for him to concentrate for long stretches, so he tended to alternate: a little hunting research here, a little more hitting on the librarian there. Sam’s technique was similar, but infinitely more effective. He had a triple red-eye cappuccino, several volumes of local history and architecture, and a stack of poetry books for his English class. He wouldn’t alternate with flirting with the librarian - an octogenarian of a particularly salty disposition - but he could at least alternate subjects. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, shoved aside another near-indecipherable legal description of a grand family estate, and reached for the volume of Dorothy Parker. He was fond of her _Coda_ , if only because it framed life as a battle. John Winchester also thought life was a battle - an eternal battle against evil.

He probably wouldn’t enjoy being compared to Dorothy Parker.

The problem was, Sam had written about Dorothy Parker too many times, and he was selling himself short by rewriting papers. If he went for Eliot’s _The Waste Land_ , he’d have to spend much more time on his homework, but his father would let him tackle a bigger project because it would help with hunting - the study of ancient languages and texts. So Sam slid _The Portable Dorothy Parker_ to one side and scooped up _The Collected Eliot_ instead. He settled in to read.

From somewhere nearby, a girl said, “Dean.”

Sam knew better than to react automatically to a his family’s names, so he forced himself to take several deep breaths before he looked up and scanned the crowd in search of his brother. The chances of Dean actually being in the library were slim. The girl was likely directing her attention to some other Dean. If Sam’s Dean had come directly to the library without calling, he’d lost his phone and didn’t want John mad at him, or he’d lost his phone and John was in trouble.

Sam put his head down and kept reading, and the girl said again, “Dean.” She sounded closer.

Sam took a few more breaths, then looked up - and found himself staring at a girl in a fancy private school uniform, complete with plaid skirt, knee socks, and matching blazer. He checked the crest on her blazer pocket - Chilton - but it didn’t look like any of the crests he’d seen for the schools nearby. The girl walked toward his table, purpose marking her strides and marring her brow, and planted herself in front of him, hands on hips. The expression she wore was very severe.

“You’re Dean, right?”

Sam blinked. Most people didn’t mistake him for Dean, but sometimes when John introduced them he didn’t quite make it clear who was who. Maybe the girl had mixed them up. It was best to play along until he knew more. “Ah, no. Actually, I’m Sam. Dean’s younger brother.”

The girl’s frown deepened. “I didn’t know Dean had a brother.”

She didn’t look like the type of girl Dean went for - especially since she was probably only Sam’s age, and therefore several different kinds of illegal. But maybe she knew Dean, somehow? Sam glanced at her uniform again. Maybe she lived near the fancy house where John and Dean were working. But why would they have spoken to her? No one was supposed to know they were there.

“He doesn’t like to talk about me much - I’m kind of an embarrassing bookworm,” Sam said, which was true and would hopefully ring genuine enough for this girl.

The girl scanned the books on Sam’s table and arched an eyebrow. “I can see that. Is there a reason you have every useful volume of Eliot unopened when you know full well someone else might want to use one of them?”

 _Every single_ was surely hyperbolic, but Sam said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hog them all. I’m trying to get ideas for a paper.”

The girl frowned, tossed her head; she had straight, glossy, dark blonde hair that hung to the middle of her back. It was pulled into a very tight braid. “Why didn’t you do the reasonable thing and brainstorm before making off with half of the library?”

Sam took a deep breath. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, miss. If you want one of the books, take it. I didn’t think anyone else really cared much about _The Upanishads_ and _The Waste Land_.”

The girl tossed her head again. “That’s because no one but the most brilliant thinkers would bother with Eliot or have the cultural schema to catch an allusion to classical Indian literature -” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re _Dean’s_ brother?”

“I am.” Sam didn’t know the girl’s name and couldn’t think of a polite way to ask.

“But Dean likes cars and shooting things and classic rock,” the girl said, and Sam was alarmed, because she knew far more about Dean than anyone outside the life did, and Sam was pretty sure Dean hadn’t had sex with her. Which...ew. Sam pushed the thought aside.

“We’re brothers, not clones,” he said patiently. “How do you know my brother, anyway?”

“That’s irrelevant. Now are you using that book or not?” The girl lifted her chin at _The Illustrated Waste Land._

Sam slid it toward her. “Enjoy, Miss...”

“Geller. Paris Geller.” She scooped up the book and added it to the already tall pile in her arms, then paused. “I don’t know your last name.”

When it came to school, Sam didn’t lie. “Winchester.”

“I’d say it was nice to meet you, Sam Winchester, but it’s rarely nice meeting someone who’s an unapologetic book hog.” Paris spun on her heel and started to march away, then paused. She tossed an arch look over her shoulder and said, “If I find out you’ve checked out _The Upanishads and Eliot’s Tarot_ , I will hunt you down and pry them from your cold dead fingers.”

Sam blinked, alarmed, but then Paris was marching across the library, public school students and even adults scattering from her path. Who knew girls in plaid skirts and knee socks could be so intimidating? It was time to get back to tracking the poltergeist after all. Sam understood poltergeists. Girls, on the other hand, were crazy.

He dragged the history book with the legal descriptions close and took a deep breath. Maybe one day he’d understand the misery of metes and bounds. Maybe one day he’d understand girls. Neither possibility seemed likely. After a few moments he glanced up, but the blue, plaid, and blonde were gone.

 

The Impala pulled up to the curb outside the library precisely five minutes after it had closed. Sam was sprawled across the marble steps studying the cityscape and pondering the intricacies of _The Waste Land_ because, despite the warm glow of the lampposts, it was too dim to read. He looked up as soon as he heard the familiar rumble of the engine. The driver’s side window rolled down, and Dean stuck his head out.

“Hey bookworm, we don’t have all night. I want some food.”

Sam rolled his eyes but bit back an insult that would earn him a cuff round the head from his father. He scooped up his books and bag, headed around to the passenger side to be let in. “How did it go?” he asked, contorting himself into the back seat. Dean and John were wearing orange t-shirts with an arrow logo and _Lane Movers_ on the breast pocket. Both of them looked tired.

“No EMF on a single thing we packed,” Dean said. “Picked up bits in the house when I got lost on my way to find the head - and I do mean lost, because that place is friggin’ huge. If I were a ghost, I’d be pissy about living there too. People should live in houses, not antique _hotels_.”

“What did you find?” John asked.

Had Sam found anything immediately urgent, he’d have called. “It’s an old building, so plenty of people have died there. The Gellers have lived there since the Revolution, so any ghost will have been buried in the family plot, and it sounds like they’re not big on cremation, so it should be a standard salt-and-burn. A couple of men have dallied with the help, but it seems like none of the women cared.”

Dean snorted. “They cared. Maybe back then they didn’t show it, but they definitely cared.”

“Well, none of them cared enough to kill themselves or do anything else violent and dramatic,” Sam said.

John said, “Could just be the women in the family. Didn’t you see the mother and daughter? Both strident, very frosty, and running on one frequency: sarcastic derision.”

“Derision?” Dean echoed, trying not to look puzzled.

John cleared his throat. “ _I would tell you that you look fine, Paris, but a girl who has to take her own cousin to the school formal never looks fine_.” Something about the pitch and tone of his imitation was familiar. Dean laughed, because apparently he had witnessed the matrons of the house too.

Sam said, “But the women wouldn’t be Gellers - they’d all have married in. So unless the men in the family all have the same type and manage to always find it -”

“This look like a good place?” Dean asked. They were at stop light, and Dean was eyeing a flickering diner sign like it was a three-star restaurant.

“Looks like they have burgers,” John said. “That’s good enough for me.”

Dean flipped on his turn signal. “I think I want a milkshake. Just being around all those compulsive tea drinkers made me hungry for something totally American. They’re the Daughters of the Revolution or whatever - shouldn’t they drink something less British?”

Sam resisted the urge to point out that tea was introduced to Great Britain _from China._ Dean and John didn’t care about trivia anyway.

The diner was small, cramped, and badly lit. Sam wondered if that was so no one could get a good look at the food. Dean flirted with the gum-snapping waitress, but it was half-hearted. She might have been good-looking, but the stuttering fluorescent lights overhead made it hard to tell. That Dean didn’t mock Sam for ordering a salad meant he must have been very tired.

“Did you find anything about any of the servants?” John asked once the waitress was out of earshot. “Maybe it’s nothing to do with the family at all. The fact that servants are being targeted means we could be looking at something that went on just among the staff.”

Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam. “Anything juicy happen with the help?” He grinned to himself. “The help, in their cute little uniforms -”

John shot him a look, and Dean cut himself off.

Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Nothing in the immediate history of the family or the house. But I can give it a shot.” The house was hundreds of years old and had had more servants than family. Crawling through the lives of each and every one would be an absolute nightmare.

John grunted around a mouthful of burger and nodded his approval of the plan. Sam was the youngest, the most inexperienced, the biggest liability - they only brought him on the actual hunt when it was absolutely necessary. Never mind that Sam had been able to shoot, field strip, clean, and reassemble a gun since he was nine.

Back at the motel, Dean and John took over the table on the far side of the room from the bed Sam was sharing with Dean. Dean spread out blueprints of the house and a map of the grounds that he’d somehow acquired while he was meant to be helping John schlep boxes. He and John pored over them, searching for external crypts, underground passages, or old buildings that no longer existed, in case anything had happened near the house that was affecting the house itself. John scribbled in his journal. Dean marked sections of the house with a pencil, consulting his EMF reader. Sam was curled up on his side of the bed, reading _The Waste Land_. Occasionally Dean sang tunelessly to himself, _Dada, dadada, dadada_. John shot him a look, but then Dean pointed to some of his notes. John waved for him to continue and went back to his journal.

At ten o’clock, John said, “Lights out, Sammy.”

Sam sucked in a deep breath, then closed his book. He went to the bathroom and washed his face, brushed his teeth. He shucked down to his boxers, crawled into the bed on the side closest to the wall, and rolled over to face the wall to try and ignore the some of the light. Dean and John were still hunched over the table on the other side of the room, lights blazing, so Sam dragged the coverlet up over his head. Another day in the life of Sam Winchester - researching poltergeists, researching poetry, and failing to talk to girls. How the hell had Dean learned how to do it? They’d never had a mom, and John’s charm was down-home and humble or professional and authoritative in turns, but never flirty.

A girl like Paris Geller wasn’t Dean’s type - she read Eliot and obscure Indian religious texts and spoke twelve miles a minute. She should have been Sam’s type of girl, but Sam had totally failed at talking to her. In fact, his very existence had annoyed her. Sam sighed and punched his pillow. He shouldn’t even care. He didn’t have time for a girlfriend; none of them did, which was why Dean sometimes banished Sam to the convenience store across the street while John was on an extended solo hunt so Dean could have some private time with whichever cute waitress had caught his eye.

Sam sighed again. Paris Geller. She’d threatened him. A skinny blonde thing in a preppy school girl uniform and shiny two-tone shoes had threatened him. That was laughable. Apart from the fact that fighting a girl - witches and werewolves not included - was morally repugnant, Sam couldn’t bring himself to punch someone who looked like an accountant-in-training.

And then he realized. Paris _Geller_. He flung the covers aside and sat bolt upright.

“What’s the name of the daughter who lives in the haunted house?”

Dean and John turned to him with twin looks of surprise.

“Why?” Dean asked.

“Was it Paris Geller?” Sam asked.

John rifled through his notes. “Yes. Why?”

“I met her,” Sam said. “Today, at the library.”

Dean blinked. “What?”

“Paris Geller. I saw her at the library. She threatened me if I borrowed a book she wanted,” Sam said.

“Is this relevant to the job at hand?” John asked.

Sam withered under the intensity of his father’s gaze. “Um...no. I just thought I’d mention it. In case you need inside help. Or something.”

Dean snickered. “Did you try to flirt with her?”

“No,” Sam said flatly.

“Sleep, son,” John said, and turned back to the blueprints.

Sam lay back down and curled up under the covers, dragged them over his head. Right. He was the family dead weight. Maybe when he woke up, this case would be over, and they could move on.

 

The problem with tracking down servants was that most of them had been poor, immigrants, or both, and so paper records on them were few and far between. Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe the headache building in his skull was just from sitting hunched over for too long and would go away if he stood up and walked around for a bit. The headache was really due to sleep- and caffeine-deprivation and the tension that had erupted in the motel room that morning when Sam asked if he could go along after school and help with the actual hunting.

Sam scanned the book aisles for any trace of Chilton blue plaid and decided his books would be safe for a few minutes if he wandered outside for a coffee refill. The vendor at the coffee cart looked skeptical when Sam asked for another triple red-eye, but jokes about coffee stunting one’s growth had ended when Sam woke up one morning and was the tallest member of his family.

The rush of bitterness, caffeine, and heat was bliss in the chill of the late afternoon air. Sam closed his eyes, revelled in the simple pleasure. When Dean had called for his lunchtime check-in, he’d reported nothing more than stagnation - no more EMF, no new leads. Sam had to have _something_ to report to his father if he didn’t want to lay awake half the night feeling like a miserable failure.

He wasn’t a hunter or a mechanic. The only thing he was good at was school, and what was that good for, except for college? Dean hadn’t finished high school, just dropped out and sat for the GED so he could hunt full-time.

Sam wished, not for the first time, that this case was over already. He took another sip of his coffee.

And then Paris Geller said, “ _Hurry up please its time_.”

Her tone was clipped, annoyed, and for a moment Sam thought she was jonesing for coffee too, but then he realized. She was reciting from _The Waste Land._

Sam straightened up from where he was leaning against one of the Ionic columns and smiled tentatively at her. She had her arms crossed over her chest defensively, but she wasn’t holding any of the books he’d been reading.

“Come again?” he asked. He remembered Dean’s saucy comment from the night before, his father’s pointed question, and he had an idea.

Paris said again, “ _Hurry up please its time._ ”

Sam wondered what Dean would do in this situation. For one second he considered flirting with Paris to get information the way Dean did, and he blushed.

Paris tapped her foot impatiently; she was standing one step above him and was still shorter than him. “Will you hurry up with those books already? It’s just a stupid public school paper, not an ivy-league dissertation.”

Maybe she was cranky because there was a poltergeist in her house.

Sam sipped some more coffee and said, “ _Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight. Ta ta._ ” He even managed a Dean-like smile, or at least he hoped was Dean like, charming and a little flirtatious. Granted, Dean would never flirt by reciting poetry.

Paris raised her eyebrows. “So you’re not actually an illiterate hack.”

“We’ve both managed to read and remember parts of _The Waste Land_. I guess that means you’re not an illiterate hack either.” Sam finished his coffee and tossed it in a nearby garbage can, then sauntered back up the steps.

Paris shouted after him, “So can I have those books or not?”

Sam swallowed hard. If he wanted to be a real hunter, he’d have to be Dean. He paused, glanced over his shoulder, and said, “When you pry them from my cold dead fingers.” Then he returned to his desk and slid back into his seat, resuming his search for the whereabouts of a former footman of the Geller mansion. This time, he sensed Paris when she marched toward his desk. He didn’t look up from his book.

“You’re not using any of the Eliot books right now.” It was an accusation.

Sam glanced up at her. He knew Dean’s best insolent and insouciant tones, usually because he was cringing whenever Dean used those tones on an authority figure. “Oh, hey, Paris. Did you need something?”

“I _need_ to finish my lit paper,” she said.

Sam nodded. “As do I. But I need to finish my history paper first.”

“Then while you’re working on your history paper you should give me the Eliot books,” Paris said.

Sam drummed his fingers on the cover of the _Brihadaranyaka Upanishad_. “How about...no.”

Paris gaped. “What do you mean, _no?_ ”

Sam smirked, and he was totally channeling Dean. “ _Ssshhh_. We’re in a library.”

Paris’s jaw worked, and her grip on her binder turned white-knuckled. “This is a public institution, and as a member of the public, I am equally entitled to the books, if not more so, because right now you’re _not using them_.”

Sam looked her up and down, and she automatically tightened her shoulders, drew back defensively. “Let’s make a deal,” he said.

“What kind of deal?” Paris’s expression was understandably wary.

“You help me with my history paper and I’ll share my English books with you.” Sam leaned back in his chair, and he was totally Dean. He could do this.

“You need a tutor? Pay someone,” Paris said.

“I don’t need a tutor,” Sam said. “I just need you, Paris Geller.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why do you need me?”

Sam slid a piece of paper across the desk toward her. “Paris Geller, currently residing in the Geller family manor? I have some questions for you.”

Paris picked up the paper by the corner as if it were slathered with blood from a plague victim and squinted at John’s cramped, blocky handwriting. “You were assigned _my house_ as a history project?”

Sam flashed her another Dean-smile. “The Geller family has resided in that house since the seventeenth century. Many notable public figures and entrepreneurs have come from the house of Geller, and I’m here to learn all your dirty secrets.”

“We don’t have any dirty secrets,” Paris said flatly. “My family is boring. A glacier has a more interesting existence than my family.”

“Maybe _your_ family is boring, but your ancestors were powerful, influential, and charismatic.” Sam gazed at her earnestly. “So...scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours.”

Paris took a step back. “There will be no scratching whatsoever.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s a metaphor. You help me, I help you, and we both get what we want.”

Paris peered at Sam’s assignment sheet again before letting it flutter back onto the desk. “I don’t know what kind of miscreant half-educated would-be public servant would assign _my house_ and _my life_ as a homework assignment, but if it will get me the Eliot I want, fine.”

Sam smiled and gestured at the seat opposite. “Then be my guest.”

“I don’t study in public libraries,” Paris said.

Sam considered his next move. What would Dean do? Usually with girls that philosophy was a beeline for trouble. “Want to grab a cup of coffee? I know a place.” Sam started scooping his books into his backpack. He noticed the way Paris stared intently at each of the Eliot books he had.

“If I’m going to imbibe coffee, it’s going to be out of a top-of-the-line espresso machine, not something from the steam age,” Paris said. “We’re taking my car.”

Sam stood up and shouldered his pack. “Works for me. Just drop me off here when all is said and done.”

“Fine,” Paris said. She spun on her heel and marched for the doors at double time. Sam followed her, hanging back a bit to fish his cellphone out of his pocket. He got Dean’s voicemail and left a brief message; he was on a study date and would call when his study partner dropped him back off at the library.

When Paris said she had a car, she hadn’t mentioned that she was driving a Lexus. Dean would have been disgusted at how her parents had bought her such a fine - if apple pie - machine instead of making her earn it and love it. Paris drove the way she spoke - aggressively, purposefully, and a little too fast. Sam felt no need to clutch the panic bar, because he’d been in the back seat of the Impala when Dean was flooring it down the interstate at 3 a.m. with an angry werewolf on their tail, but Paris was an intimidating driver all the same.

Sam recognized the Geller estate from his midnight recon with John. No one would be trying to scale the wrought iron fence today. Paris pulled the car around to a concealed driveway, and Sam saw several large moving trucks bearing the same orange arrow logo as the shirts Dean and John had been wearing. Sam held his breath. This could all go wrong in an instant. If John saw him at the manor -- Sam scanned the shadows at the curb, but there was no sign of the Impala.

Paris led Sam through a side entrance, past a veritable hotel of rooms and a cavernous kitchen. Their destination was a dining room of Austen-novel proportions. Sam paused in the doorway and watched Paris arrange her binders, notebooks, and textbooks at the head of the table at precise angles. Was he supposed to sit at the complete opposite end of the table, or was he allowed to sit near her? John had raised his boys with decent enough manners, but neither of them were equipped for high society.

Paris shrugged off her blazer and laid it over the back of the chair to her left. She went to sit down, then paused and cast him a disdainful look.

“Are you going to stand there and attempt to become part of the decor, or are you going to have a seat so we can get your ridiculous history project done?”

Sam took the seat to her right. He fished his research notes out of his pack and found a pen.

“So, Sam Winchester, what do you want to know about my family that isn’t already in the municipal archives?”

Sam clicked his pen. “Are there any ghosts in this house?”

And there it was, the patented Paris glare of disdain. “How can that possibly be relevant to your history assignment?”

“A history of a place isn’t just in its facts, it’s in the people and myths that bring the place alive,” Sam said smoothly, and he was pretty pleased with himself. Dean wouldn’t have been that quick on his feet.

“If I wanted to tell ghost stories, I’d have sleeping bags and flashlights and marshmallows, and _you_ wouldn’t be invited,” Paris said. She was eyeing Sam’s backpack with a frankly disturbing predatory air.

Sam smiled and leaned in. “C’mon, Paris. _Quid pro quo_. You help me, I help you.”

Paris looked at him for a long moment, searching his expression, and Sam willed himself to look as earnest and honest as possible. Whatever Paris saw made her disdain fade. “I heard a tale from one of my nannies once, but I don’t put any stock in it.”

Sam said, “I’m not your nanny.”

Paris rolled her eyes and shook her hair out. She began to speak as if reciting from a history book. Sam took notes and wondered if this was how Dean did his research once the flirting was out of the way.

On the way back to the library, Sam’s cellphone rang.

John Winchester barked like a marine drill sergeant. “Where the hell have you been?”

Sam yanked his cellphone away from his ear. “Hey, Dad, I was studying with a partner. I’ll be back at the library in just a few minutes.”

“Did you get any work on the case done, or was it just homework?” John asked.

“A bit of both,” Sam said, and then he reached into his backpack and fished out _The Illustrated Waste Land_. Paris raised her eyebrows, and Sam set the book on the dashboard. “I’ll tell you what I got when I see you.”

“Next time check in when you take off from our approved rendezvous point,” John said.

“I called and checked in with Dean, Sir,” Sam said. “I got his voicemail.”

John’s voice went muffled for a bit, and Sam heard him say, “Do you have any missed calls?” Whatever Dean said made John grunt. Then he returned at full volume. “Did get any supper?” That was as close to an apology as Sam was going to get.

“Yes. My study partner had a very adequate supply of study snacks.” Spending time around Paris taught one the art of understatement as well as angry hyperbole.

One of Paris’s many housemaids had slipped into the dining room and asked if they wanted any food. Paris had said a light snack was fine, and twenty minutes later several maids returned laden down with trays of finger sandwiches, mini-muffins, carrot sticks, an assortment of cheeses and crackers, a fruit dish, and the best coffee Sam had ever tasted. Paris had touched barely any of it, but she’d given Sam permission to eat as much as he liked. She might have made an arch comment about his height when she did so, but Sam had been too hungry to care.

“Will I be seeing you at the library tomorrow?” Paris asked, though her tone suggested she didn’t want to ever see him again. She pulled the car up to the sidewalk.

Sam opened the door and said, “I suppose that depends on you.”

“Depends on me how?”

Sam leaned over and caught her gaze. Dean always said eye contact was important when talking to girls. “ _Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night_.”

Paris spluttered, but Sam was out of the car and shouldering his backpack.

“What was that supposed to mean, beside the obvious?” Paris demanded.

Sam said, “You’re not an illiterate hack. You’ll figure it out.” He closed the passenger door before Paris could lunge after him, and after a few moments, she peeled away from the pavement and sped off into the night.

The Impala appeared not thirty seconds later. Sam crawled into the back seat, and he thought it was patently unfair that he had to cram himself back there - after all, he was the tallest - but he knew his place in the ranks, so he settled in.

“What did you find?” John asked.

“As it turns out, we do have one emotional, if not violent death associated with the history of the house,” Sam said. “It tracks with some of the records I found, so I think we have a winner.”

“Just one?” Dean asked. “Rich people always have an army of skeletons in their walk-in closets.”

“Well, Paris wasn’t kidding when she said her family was boring,” Sam said.

John caught Sam’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Paris?”

Sam swallowed hard and tried to appear nonchalant. “My study partner.”

“She goes to a private school,” John said, and his expression was unreadable.

“We happen to be working on papers for a similar subject, and she wanted the books I’d borrowed from the library,” Sam said. “We struck a deal - she gave me the lowdown on her house, and I let her use my books.”

Dean twisted around in his seat to flash Sam a mocking grin. “Aw, my baby brother’s all grown up. I knew you’d see it my way - you get info _and_ action. It’s always a win.”

John’s expression turned thunderous. “Samuel Winchester, there better not have been any _action_ with a member of the Geller family -”

Sam shot Dean a glare. “No, Dad. We just talked. And Paris told me that one of the maids had an affair with one of the footmen, and they had a kid. The guy stuck around for a pretty good long while, actually, and their daughter was raised in the household as a maid, and then one day he took off and left them behind, and the little girl went mad with grief. Starved herself to death on a hunger strike waiting for him to come back.”

Dean sobered at the mention of a loss of a parent. “And you think this girl is our ghost?”

“Apparently she has been known to throw objects at people, push people down the stairs, and generally act out in anger,” Sam said.

“Did, uh, _Paris_ \--” Dean waggled his eyebrows -- “mention whether she’d heard the spirit speak at all? Some of the maids who arrived on the scenes of the accidents mentioned they’d heard the spirit saying strange stuff.”

“She didn’t say,” Sam said. “What was the spirit saying?”

“Mumbo-jumbo, mostly,” Dean said. He rolled his eyes. “ _Dada. Dayada. Dayada_. I thought it might be like a song, you know?” He tried the sounds again to a rock tune, but it didn’t quite work. “Was the maid foreign? Because I think one of the maids said she heard the ghost speaking Italian or something.”

“I’d have to check the records, but I think the servants were mostly Eastern European, if anything,” Sam said.

Dean twisted around in his seat to smirk at Sam. “Paris didn’t give you any of the _dirty details_ , then?”

Sam rolled his eyes and ignored the innuendo. “Paris was very skeptical about the whole tale, of course, and didn’t have any information about what triggers the spirit’s restlessness, but I think it’s pretty obvious.”

“Obvious how?” John asked. He and Dean had puzzled over the problem half the night - there was no consistent timeline for the poltergeist’s attacks, and they’d only occurred in the last six months.

“Paris’s father is leaving, right?” Sam said. “The house must be full of heightened emotions. The spirit’s probably feeding off them - her father left too.”

Dean raised his eyebrows, pondering, and then he nodded at Sam. He glanced at John, waiting for the final approval, and John nodded.

“Good work, son.” He pulled the car into an empty spot near their motel room and cut the engine. “Now sleep - you’re past curfew as it is.”

“Any clue where the girl was buried?” Dean asked.

“Not on the family grounds,” Sam said.

“We’ll take it from here, son.” John unlocked the door and let Sam go in first. Sam paused in the doorway automatically, like he’d been taught, checking all the entrances before he proceeded. Dean topped up the salt lines around the windows.

Sam crawled into bed and closed his eyes, tried to sleep, but John and Dean were still banging around by the table. They had a murmured conversation, and then Sam heard the door open, close, heard the Impala rumble to life. A moment later, the bed dipped down under someone’s weight, and Dean said,

“You did some pretty good work today, Sammy.”

Sam rolled over and smiled at his brother. “Thanks.”

Dean reached out to ruffle his hair, and Sam tried to duck his hand.

“So, this Paris chick, is she hot?”

“Not your type,” Sam said. “She likes to read.”

Dean waggled his eyebrows. “Then she’s _your_ type?”

Sam remembered Amy from Nebraska, her earnest sweetness, her quiet intensity. He hoped she was all right, wherever she was. “No. But I pretended she was, and I pretended I was you.”

“So you _did_ flirt with her?”

Sam couldn’t help but blush. “Maybe not that well, but I got what we needed, right?”

“Yeah.” Dean patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a damn fine hunter, Sammy. Now c’mon - let’s get some shut-eye.”

 

Since John and Dean were legitimately getting paid for their work at the Geller house, they had to stick around for another couple of days to finish the job. Absent some dire circumstance, like Dean outraging the lady of the house, John wasn’t going to blow town and turn down some hard-earned cash. That gave Sam time to work on his school project while John and Dean tracked down the ghost’s final resting place. They’d bring him along as look-out for the salt-and-burn, but he probably wouldn’t be wielding a shovel. Sam couldn’t decide if it was Alanis Morisette-ironic or just bizarre that ever since Dean dropped out of high school, Sam had hunted less than when they’d both been in school together.

Logic said that the older Sam got, the more experienced he was, the more useful he’d be on a hunt. Ergo, John would let Sam hunt more.

But Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to hunt. All growing up, he’d wanted to play soccer, to join clubs at school, but he’d never had the chance, and now that he was being left to concentrate on school, he wanted to hunt. Sam scrubbed a hand through his hair to wipe away all the contradictions spinning a whirlpool in his head. He had a paper to write.

“ _Consider handsome Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you._ ”

Sam jumped, one hand going for his knife, the other switching his pen to a stabbing grip.

Paris was leaning right beside his ear, smirking. “Nice to see you aren’t always a champion of constant vigilance.”

Sam relaxed, tried to slow his breath and calm his racing heart. It was just Paris, reciting poetry. He flipped his pen around and eased his hand away from his knife. “Hello. Back sharking for more of my books? As you can see, I’m actually using them now.”

Paris thumped _The Illustrated Waste Land_ down on the desk and reached for _Eliot’s Tarot_. “You’re not using all of them, are you?”

Sam reached out, caught her wrist. “Patience isn’t one of your virtues, is it?”

Paris looked affronted, and Sam realized what he’d done. He’d just _grabbed_ a girl against her will, which wasn’t as bad as some things he could have done, but -

“Unhand me at once,” Paris hissed, but she didn’t sound quite angry. Something in her voice wavered.

Sam released her slowly, carefully, and sat back. “I apologize,” he said.

Paris cleared her throat and straightened up. “Apology accepted. However, now that your history project is done, our _quid pro quo_ for Eliot books is done.”

“Perhaps,” Sam said. “And...perhaps not.” He thought quickly. “As part of my history project, I need pictures of the site in question. And the last time I was there, it wasn’t really conducive for photography.”

Paris furrowed her brow in confusion; she wore that expression surprisingly often, given how brilliant she was. She’d managed to quote Eliot at him and threaten to kill him, all while making it sound like flirting. In _The Waste Land_ , Phlebas was a sailor who’s death was prophesied - drowning.

Maybe she hadn’t intended it to sound like flirting. But she’d been witty and vicious all in one go. Dean would have been impressed. Except, not really, because Dean wasn’t into Eliot. Or poetry in general.

Sam realized he was rambling _in his own head_ , and he flashed Paris a weak smile. “So...pictures?”

Paris tossed her head and went from confused to strident in a single instant. “You can find plenty of pictures on the Internet or otherwise freely accessible media. Now hand over that book.”

“I _could_ get media-approved pictures of the grand windows with their original glass, the sweeping lawns and artist-palette flower beds,” Sam said, “but I also want to get an _A_ on this project, so I’d rather have pictures I took myself, preferably with a member of the family in them. After all, who knows? You might become president.”

“I’m going to medical school at Johns Hopkins,” Paris said flatly.

“If an actor can become president, why not a doctor?” Sam said. He was pretty pleased with himself and his logic.

“You’re infuriating,” Paris said. She glanced toward the double doors, but the light filtering through the glass was already dimming. “Obviously it’s too dark for pictures now. How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“I can do that,” Sam said.

“I’ll call you.” Paris fished in her blazer for a pen. “What’s your number?”

Sam reached into his jacket for his cellphone, then paused. He wasn’t supposed to give his number to anyone. When he called people, the number would come up restricted. “How about you give me yours?”

Paris recited it, and Sam stored it away. As soon as Hartford was out of sight, he’d probably delete it. If he didn’t, Dean or John would do it for him.

“Tomorrow afternoon, then, after school,” Paris said.

Sam nodded and tried a cocky Dean grin. “It’s a date.”

“Whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Paris stomped away.

Sam watched her go in a swirl of gold, blue, and plaid, and wondered what he’d have done if she’d agreed to a date. He didn’t have anything nice to wear, or money to take her anywhere other than a roach-kingdom diner for cheap coffee.

Moments later, Paris returned, grabbed _Eliot’s Tarot_. “ _Quid pro quo_. Book for pictures.”

Sam watched her go and wondered what he’d gotten himself into.

 

“Got jerky?” Dean asked.

“Check.” Sam held up the bag. “And soda. Some pie in a box. A flashlight. And a boring book you’d make fun of. It’ll keep me busy while you and Dad finish the job.”

Dean reached in the passenger window and tried to ruffle Sam’s hair; he grinned, amused, at Sam’s glare. “Sit tight, Sammy. We’re just gonna go gank the evil while you geek it out.”

“Thanks, Dean.” Sam slouched down on the leather bench seat and opened his book. He could see, over Dean’s shoulder, John standing with a pair of shovels, a bag full of salt, and lighter fluid.

“Don’t let the monsters get you,” Dean said, and though his tone was light, his words were serious.

Sam nodded at the dashboard where he’d laid out his night vigil supplies - iron, silver, salt, and holy water. “Be safe,” he said.

Dean straightened up, winked. “Always am.”

John beckoned from the bottom of the grassy hill that led into the cemetery. “Let’s go!”

Dean nodded over his shoulder and ruffled Sam’s hair one last time, then turned and trotted toward the hill. Sam watched them fade into the shadows where headstones, trees, and lawn all melted into a single sheet of darkness. They’d parked around the back of the cemetery so no one would see the car. Even though it was black, it was shiny and a classic, memorable to anyone with a suspicious mind.

And honestly, digging up graves and burning remains was suspicious. Sam couldn’t blame someone observant for having a suspicious mind. He tried to focus on his book, but the words were blurring. Eliot’s writing was so _dense_ , and Sam wasn’t any good at foreign languages. Even back when Eliot was writing, surely it hadn’t been common practice to speak Greek, Latin, French, Italian, German, _and_ Sanskrit.

Maybe it had been.

And maybe Sam should have brought a copy of _La Divina Commedia_ along as well, given how often Eliot referenced it. Assuming Paris hadn’t already checked it out. Of course, she probably had a fancy copy of her own.

Sam sighed and rubbed his eyes. Then he reached for one of the sodas. He was breaking into the caffeine early. It was going to be a long night. The fatally anorexic maid had been buried in a cheap family plot, multiple bodies in a single grave marked only by their last name, so Dean and John would have to dig a bigger area than usual and burn multiple bodies. It was a risky job, but then the poltergeist would be gone, and they could leave - after the moving job was finished.

After two bottles of soda, more than his fair share of the jerky, and flipping through _The Illustrated Waste Land_ one more time, Sam buckled down. He was puzzling out the _she_ in the opening lines of the section of the poem entitled _A Game of Chess_ when a shadow startled him. Sam sat bolt upright, scanning the surroundings, alert for the gleam of a police cruiser.

John and Dean were dashing down the hill toward the car at full tilt. Neither of them were shouting, because that would give their position away, but Dean was signaling with his shovel for Sam to _get up and going already_ , and Sam slid over to the driver’s seat, turned the key and listened to the engine rumble to life.

John reached the car first and dove right into the back seat seconds before Dean flung himself onto the front seat beside Sam, and Sam floored the gas pedal.

“Did you get it?” Sam asked. He glanced in the rearview mirror instinctively, expecting to see a spectral, screaming figure of a Victorian housemaid or her skeleton, but there was nothing supernatural there.

Just the silhouettes of police officers on foot.

“We got it just fine - her and the rest of the family,” John said. “Sam, turn your paper in early. One more day of hauling boxes and we can get out of this town.”

Sam was more than okay with that plan. Except he’d have to stay up all night if he wanted to turn his paper in early.

 

“You’re turning your paper in early?” Sam’s English teacher was puzzled.

Sam slid the plastic-bound paper across the desk. “Yes, Ma’am. My dad just got a new job and we’re leaving town this weekend, so I figured I’d better turn this in before we go.”

Miss Hanson still looked puzzled, but she picked up the paper anyway, scanned the cover sheet. “T. S. Eliot? He was very fond of the esoteric.”

Sam smiled politely and forced back a yawn. When he’d finally crawled under what share of the covers Dean wasn’t hogging, it had been well past three in the morning. “My father has a hobby for classical languages and literature,” he said, which was true, if one counted Latin exorcism rites as classical literature.

“I see.” Miss Hanson flipped through some of the pages, then set the paper down. “I’m sorry we didn’t have you in our class longer. You do good work, Sam, although your class participation could improve some.”

Sam ducked his head. “Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll bear that in mind. We move around so much, and it’s kinda hard to fit in.”

Sympathy softened Miss Hanson’s features. “Of course. Good luck at your new school, Sam.”

He bobbed his head gratefully, said his farewells, and headed for his locker to empty it out. Shoveling books into his backpack - the ones he got to keep, as opposed to the ones he had to take to the school library - was an all too familiar ritual. Sam slammed his locker shut and took a deep breath. This was his life. It’s what he’d signed up for when he decided to take an active role in this hunt.

“We can’t take pictures at my house today,” Paris said, and Sam jumped, startled.

She was leaning against the locker next to his.

“Paris! What are you doing here?” Sam ushered her away from his locker and toward the relative privacy of the school library.

“To tell you we have to move your creepy history photo shoot to another day,” Paris said.

The fake photo shoot. Sam had almost forgotten all about it. He’d have to pick up one of those cheap disposable cameras to make the story good. Only the Winchesters were getting the hell out of Dodge. Or Hartford.

“Oh. Uh. That’s too bad.”

“It is too bad,” Paris said. “Another one of the staff was injured in a freak accident on the servant stairs this morning.”

Sam stopped shoveling his text books into the book return box and turned. “This morning?”

“Yes. We had to call the paramedics and everything. My mother called 911 and my father had a hissy fit because he had to delay his movers.” Paris rolled her eyes.

Sam swallowed hard. This morning? Impossible. John and Dean had burned the ghost’s corpse last night. “When you say another ‘freak accident’ -”

“I mean poor maids being shoved down the stairs by invisible forces.” Paris rolled her eyes again. “Whatever. Those women are crazy and drink too much coffee. When people fall, the only invisible force acting on them is gravity or their own physical stupidity.”

Sam narrowed his eyes, studied her face. She was playing for her usual derisive nonchalance, but there was a tightness to her shoulders, a downturn at the corners of her mouth, that spoke of something more.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Just fine. I would have called you sooner, but you didn’t give me your number, so I had to come to your school and ask around until someone could point me to your locker,” Paris said. “Did you know your classmates call you _Beanpole?_ ”

“I didn’t know that.” Sam returned the last of his textbooks and headed for the doors. He had to give Paris the slip and call Dean, tell him they’d missed some of the ghost’s remains somewhere.

“Why are you attending Hartford, anyway?” Paris asked.

“It’s a school where I won’t get noticed,” Sam said distractedly. He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone.

“If you were going to Stars Hollow High, you’d get noticed,” Paris said. “You’d probably be the hottest guy in school. Or maybe the second hottest, depending on how much the girls like Dean. Or are you the charming one? You’re at least the literate one. I can’t imagine what Rory sees in a mechanic.”

“Mechanics are good with their hands,” Sam automatically, and then he realized how terrible that sounded.

Paris huffed. “You really _are_ Dean’s brother.”

Sam smiled tightly. “Listen, Paris, I gotta go call my dad, tell him you and I had to reschedule. He’s the only one who has a car, so I have to work with him -”

Paris stopped short. “Right. I get it. Go talk to your father. At least he talks to you. And meet me at the library tomorrow after school we can get your stupid pictures done.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “And you can have your stupid books.” He didn’t notice the hurt that crossed Paris’s face for a single instant before he turned the corner and flipped open his cell phone, dialed. “Dean. We have a problem.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

John scrubbed a hand over his face. “Are you sure?” He, Sam, and Dean were crammed into a booth at the diner closest to their motel. They had a pot of coffee and Sam’s research spread out between them.

Sam nodded. “Paris was pretty explicit. Based on her description, it was the poltergeist.”

“Apparently we salted and burned the wrong corpse,” Dean said. “We gotta go back to the drawing board.”

“Well, we got some cash in hand, so if we need to put in another night, we can.” John leafed through Sam’s notes on the list of unfaithful Geller husbands. 

“So the girl just told you there was another poltergeist attack at her house and walked away? She tracked you down at school to tell you that?” Dean raised his eyebrows.

Sam took a sip of his coffee to forestall comment. How best to explain without giving Dean an opening to make fun of him? “I told her I needed some pictures of her house for my ‘history project’ and we were going to take the pictures today. She came to find me to cancel.”

Dean smirked. “Pictures of her _house_ , huh?”

“Yes, her house.” 

“You could just get pictures off the Internet,” Dean said.

Sam sighed. “I told her I needed pictures with her in them.”

“That’s my boy.” Dean’s grin was decidedly wicked. “You know, I bet you could find some pretty reasonably priced lace and silk --”

“Shut up, Dean. It’s not like that,” Sam said.

“The junior miss of the house isn’t bad-looking,” Dean said. “Slender. Blonde. Decent curves. A little uptight, but then I guess that’s your type, huh, Sammy?”

When Dean was out to rib Sam about girls, there really was no stopping him, so Sam sipped some more of his coffee and refused to rise to the bait. Who else could the poltergeist have been? Perhaps it was the father of the maid who’d starved herself to death, his guilt over his daughter and his anger at her mother driving him to harm maids just like her.

“When does the library close?” John asked.

Sam glanced at his watch. “Half an hour ago.”

John dragged a hand over his face again. “You turned in your paper?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I don’t have to go to school tomorrow. We can all hit up the library as a team. Drink way too much coffee.”

Dean snorted and refilled his mug. “Yeah. Because we never do that.”

“I still have to go take pictures of Paris’s house,” Sam said. He bit his lip. “Can I, uh, borrow five bucks to get one of those cheap disposable cameras?”

“Sure,” John said distractedly. He reached into his pocket for his wallet and flung it down on the table. “Sam, whatever happened to this guy, Hugh Luffman, after he left the estate?”

“He dropped off the grid,” Sam said. Hugh Luffman was the father of the fatally anorexic maid. 

“There’s always census records,” Dean said. “There’s also the risk that he croaked it between decades, but it’s a way to find him or his family. Maybe his family is all buried in some cheap family plot too.”

“We’ll run a search on his last name,” John said. “Maybe a living relative knows something off the record.”

Sam took five bucks and slid John’s wallet back across the table. John pocketed it without looking at it. 

“So, it’s cool if I go over to Paris’s house after her school gets out?” Sam asked. He tried to keep his voice calm and steady.

“Why?” Dean asked. “It’s not like you have any more school work due.”

“Having Sam on the inside in case we need to be let in could be useful,” John said absently.

“Okay.” Sam reached for his cell phone. “Let me go call Paris.”

“Well, well, imagine my surprise, you’re not hoarding all the Eliot books in the library and drinking coffee like a caffeine-vampire.” Paris stood at the bottom of the library steps and called up to Sam where he was sitting against one of the columns. He lifted his head and looked down at her; something about the set-up was reminiscent of the balcony scene from _Romeo and Juliet._

Sam said, “ _Unreal City, / Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, / A crowd flowed under the London Bridge, so many, / I had not thought death had undone so many._ ”

Paris raised her eyebow. “I don’t have time for your melancholy. Get in my car and let’s go take your pictures.” Her shiny Lexus was parked on the corner.

Sam heaved himself to his feet. His heart was pounding. He was willingly walking into a haunted house without proper weapons. A small salt canister and his penknife weren’t nearly enough for a poltergeist that could push people down the stairs. 

“Are you sure this is all right with your family?” Sam asked as he slid into the passenger seat. “We won’t be getting in your parents’ or the staff’s way?”

“Father’s gone, along with his atrocious golf trophy collection,” Paris said. “My mother’s probably out with her cougar friends getting drunk in the 60-40 bars and Lupe and the ladies love you because you actually eat their food.”

That was far more information than Sam needed, but he noticed the pinched lines around Paris’s mouth, her white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. For the first time, he noticed the shadows around her eyes.

“Are you sure _you’re_ all right with this?” Sam asked. 

“I need that copy of the _Brihadaranyaka Upanishad_ ,” Paris said flatly.

Sam took a deep breath. “Right. Well, I don’t have it checked out, so if you want it, it’s all yours.”

“Good,” Paris said. “I have a theory about how the metaphysics of Eastern religions melded with Eliot’s conversion to Christianity. _The Waste Land_ tracks his progress from the Unreal to the Real, Darkness to Light, Death to Immortality, and Peace, Peace, Peace.”

_Shantih, Shantih, Shantih_. The final line of the poem was a quote from the _Upanishads_.

Sam couldn’t help but smile, amazed at Paris’s unfettered, unapologetic brilliance. “Are you sure you need a copy of the _Brihadaranyaka Upanishad?_ Sounds like you know it pretty well already.”

“I need direct quotes in the primary source language,” Paris said.

“Does your English teacher speak Sanskrit?” Sam asked.

Paris tossed her head. “Of course not, but using only a translation is academic slovenliness at its worst.” 

The last time Sam was at the Geller mansion, the place had been buzzing with staff, movers hauling boxes, and traces of Paris’s father in the background having strident conversations on his cell phone. John and Dean thought Paris got her strident manner from her mother, but they were only half right. Some of it, Sam thought as he followed Paris through the maze of hallways and staircases, certainly came from her father.

Paris came to an abrupt halt on a flat, empty landing beneath a massive circular window. In the late afternoon sun the wood floor was painted with deep golden light.

“Is this a good spot?” she asked, spreading her arms. “I’m sure you can catch both the elegant splendor of the house and get some candid shots of me at the same time.”

Sam dipped into his pocket for the little disposable camera he’d picked up at the convenience store they’d fueled up at the night before. “Do you feel comfortable enough for candid shots?”

Paris crossed her arms over her chest and cast him a look that clearly communicated her full and heartfelt belief in his idiocy. 

Yeah. Sam certainly wasn’t cut out for the flirting thing. Or the photography thing. “Do you want to change into something more...comfortable?” Her uniform looked so formal.

“I don’t have any lingerie, if that’s what you’re asking,” Paris said.

Sam felt himself turn bright red. “No! No. That’s not what I meant. I mean...you’re still in your uniform. It looks very -”

“Animated Japanese pornography?” Paris was determined to make Sam have a nosebleed, wasn’t she?

Sam wiped a clammy hand on his thigh. “No. Just...wear jeans and a t-shirt or something.”

Paris raised an eyebrow. “A t-shirt?”

“A blouse, then,” Sam said. “Wear something that makes you look like Paris Geller, future queen of the universe and not Paris Geller, oppressed prep school girl.”

Paris huffed. “Fine. Stay here. You’re not allowed to see my room.” She spun on her heel and headed up the stairs.

“I’ll be right here,” Sam said. He turned to face the window, pacing the landing, trying to pick a good angle. He really didn’t know anything about photography, but he’d heard light was important. He peered through the viewfinder on the camera, and when he was facing the window directly the light was blinding. Sam yanked the camera away and blinked, turning away from the window. 

“New angle, new angle,” he muttered to himself.

“Do I look like the future queen of the universe to you? Is the future queen of the universe even candid? I don’t believe monarchy is an optimal form of government anyway.” Paris’s words spilled down the stairs moments before she appeared.

Sam was blinking away the afterimages of too much sunlight, and then he had to blink again. He swallowed hard. “President of the universe,” he said faintly. This wasn’t just cliché, this was _chick flick_ cliché, and if Dean were there, he’d have laughed Sam out of the house. The descent down the stairs, the angry, unpopular geek girl who suddenly looked hot because she took off her glasses or whatever, it was straight out of Hollywood.

But Dean had been right, Paris wasn’t bad-looking: slender, curves in all the right places, sleek dark golden hair. 

In fact, if Dean were the one standing where Sam was standing right then, he’d have made a particularly off-color comment that would have made an entire platoon of marines blush. If Sam were as brave and brash as his brother - or could actually talk - he might have made a similar comment. But Sam couldn’t speak, didn’t know what to say. Paris’s outfit wasn’t anything spectacular, some kind of cream-ish blouse that billowed at the wrists and flared over her hips, a pair of comfortable, worn-looking jeans. She’d let her hair loose, too, and she looked relaxed. Actually relaxed, for the first time since Sam had met her.

“Wear that,” Sam said, embarrassed when his voice choked, “and you’ll definitely become president of the universe.”

Paris smiled then, not one of her sarcastic smiles, but a small, secretive smile, like she was the Mona Lisa and Sam was a hapless painter. “ _Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look._ ”

It took Sam a moment to realize she was reciting from _The Waste Land_ again. 

Paris stepped closer to him and reached out, curled her fingers around his wrist, tugged up the camera.

Sam felt his pulse jump, but then Paris was stepping backward, leaning against the banister beneath the window. She said,

“ _Hurry up please its time_.”

Sam lifted the camera with shaking hands and started clicking away. He wondered if any of the pictures would come out right. Paris posed playfully, tilting her head, cocking a hip. If Sam got these pictures developed - if any of them even turned out - he could never, ever let Dean see them.

After what seemed an eternity of Paris tossing her hair and ribbing Sam with more of _The Waste Land_ (” _You are a proper fool, I said_ ”), she stepped away from the wall.

“I know a perfect place for the future president of the universe to pose.” She turned and started up the stairs, and Sam hesitated, because her room was up there.

“Where are we going?”

“The library,” Paris said. 

She was right. It was the perfect place for the future president of the universe.

Sam was pretty sure he’d only seen such a library in movies, because really, who had honest-to-goodness wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, complete with rolling ladders for ready access to the highest shelves? Paris perched herself on the edge of a settee near one of the massive windows that overlooked the vast lawns, and Sam paced back and forth, trying to find the best angle that worked with the light. He snapped a few pictures, including one of Paris while she leafed through what looked like a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary, and then mid-snapshot she stood up and ran to the window.

Sam followed her, alarmed. Was the poltergeist back? “Is everything all right?” He reached into his pocket for this wallet where he kept several salt packets. He’d left his backpack with the salt canister in the kitchen, out of reach. That was stupid.

Paris turned to him, expression solemn, and said, “We have hyacinths down there.”

For a moment, Sam was confused, and then he realized he could see several flower beds below. “You want to take pictures down there?”

“I think it would only be fitting, given our mutual appreciation of Eliot.” Paris headed for the door, and Sam was helpless to do anything but follow. The entire house seemed silent, surreal, and Sam wondered if he’d imagined everything, if he was still standing on the landing waiting for Paris, because despite the poetry and brusque manner in which Paris directed the afternoon, she wasn’t acting like herself. 

Then again, Sam wasn’t really acting like himself either. Despite what Dean thought, Sam usually wasn’t one for randomly reciting poetry, even though he could. Like Dean said, most chicks didn’t dig guys who were into poetry. Sam suspected Paris was no exception.

Not that it mattered.

By the garden door - which they’d reached through twists and turns in the maze that led past what were most likely the old servants’ quarters - Paris paused and turned.

“ _You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; / They called me the hyacinth girl._ ”

Sam remembered the lines that came next. “ _\- Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, / Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not --_ ” His words caught in his throat. He remembered sitting with Amy, the cool soda can sweating against his palm, remembered the brush of her lips against his. All of that seemed like a hazy memory now, nothing more than a dream, because his heart was pounding in his skull and he was suddenly hyperaware that Paris smelled like sandalwood.

“ _I could not speak_ ,” Paris said, “ _and my eyes failed_.”

Sam’s breath hitched in his chest. When had Paris gotten so close? Or had he stepped closer to her? “ _I was neither living nor dead_.”

Paris reached up, put a hand on his shoulder. “Sam --”

Glass shattered.

Sam jumped, spun around. A picture had fallen from the wall. Glass lay scattered across the gleaming hardwood floor.

“What was that?” Paris peered over Sam’s shoulder.

He pointed. “Nothing. Must have been an accident.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet, fumbled it open and clutched at a salt packet. “Maybe a breeze from the garden -”

“I haven’t opened the door,” Paris said.

Sam lifted his camera. “Let’s go outside and get some last pictures, and then -”

Another picture lifted itself off the wall and hurled itself at the floor in a waterfall of glass. Paris’s breath stuttered. She clutched Sam’s shoulder.

“We need to get out of here. Now,” he said. He glanced over at Paris and backed toward the door, keeping her behind him. Another picture tumbled to the ground. Glass flew across the floor.

“Sam, the door’s locked.” Paris rattled the doorknob.

Sam spun around. He didn’t have his lock picks. No way he could open the door in time. He shoved the camera into his pocket and reached back, caught Paris by the elbow. “Get ready to run.”

“What?”

“Get ready to run.”

“Through the murderous photos and the tropical rainstorm of glass? I don’t think so,” Paris said. 

In the midst of the scattered shards, Sam heard crunching. Like footsteps. And a shape - humanoid, _female_ \- was walking toward them.

“Yes, Paris, that way,” Sam said. “The door’s locked - we have no other way to go.”

“It’s not like we have any stairs to fall down either,” Paris said.

Sam eyed the jagged shards of glass that were beginning to hover in mid-air and said, “I don’t think that matters.” He glanced back over his shoulder. Paris was pale, trembling, but her expression remained as stoic as ever.

“If we go that way, we’ll get hurt.”

“I thought you didn’t put much stock in ghost stories,” Sam said. 

“I wouldn’t bet my entire portfolio on them, but right now it seems like a few shares might not be amiss,” Paris fired back, and color bloomed in her cheeks. She went from afraid to determined. “What’s your big plan, then, to get past the ghost?”

“When I say,” Sam said, “run like hell.”

“Okay,” Paris said.

Sam yanked the salt packet out of his pocket, tore it open. Flung its contents at the misty figure. It flickered out of existence. He shouted. “Run!”

He took off down the hall at full tilt, Paris right on his heels. Sam took turns blindly, moving on instinct, unsure of which hallway led to what, but then Paris called out, _Left, left!_ and they were dashing down an empty hall - servants’ quarters - and into the kitchen.

Lupe screamed, startled by their sudden entrance.

Another scream, fainter, more distant, followed in the background.

Paris said, “Call 911. I think another maid just fell.”

Sam sank against the cupboards, breathless, and then a woman in a designer suit stepped into the kitchen. She fixed Paris with an annoyed look, and then she and Paris were exchanging words too fast and furious to keep up with. Sam dug his cellphone out of his pocket and hit the first speed dial.

“What is it?” Dean asked.

“Another poltergeist attack,” Sam whispered. He turned away from Paris and Mrs. Geller, ducked into a corner where no one could overhear. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a few deep breaths. “We got away, but I think another maid got had.”

“Go check it out, take pictures if you can,” Dean said. “We’ll be there soon.”

The call cut off, and Sam opened his eyes. A maid stood in the doorway, face ashen, stammering in broken Spanish. Sam stepped toward her, and he was familiar with this part, had talked to the victims of families too many times to count. He could be gentle, soothing.

Paris and her mother didn’t notice when Sam and the maid stole out of the kitchen. This time Sam memorized the turns through the house to a back stairwell where several maids were crowded around a prone figure sprawled at the bottom step. Sam knew his first aid, so he knelt, checking the woman’s pulse and breathing, careful not to move her neck in case of spinal injury. His Spanish was broken at best, but then Lupe appeared, and whatever she said helped the other maids dry their tears.

Sam wished he had Dean’s EMF reader to check the scene. He stood up, prowled the lowest steps, checking for evidence of a cold snap or ectoplasm.

One of the maids screamed, and Sam spun, hand going for his knife. There, at the top of the stairs, floated the spectral figure, the girl-poltergeist. The temperature in the room plunged, and Sam shivered.

A voice whispered, “ _‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’_ ”

And then the figure flickered and vanished.

Sam turned, expecting to see Paris, because he could have sworn he’d heard her voice. Moments later, he heard her footsteps as she swept into the room. She knelt beside the fallen maid and started barking orders to the other maids in fluent Spanish. Her mother stood in the doorway, lips pressed in a thin line.

Sam’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He checked the message. John and Dean were outside.

“I’m sorry, Paris,” he said faintly. His head was spinning, and he was still cold. “I have to go.”

She waved a dismissive hand, didn’t even look up. No one noticed when Sam slipped out through the side door.

“You sure you’re all right?” Dean asked. He, Sam, and John were sitting at Sam’s usual table in the library, blueprints and notes spread out around them.

“Fine,” Sam said quietly. “Not injured - not even scared. I had salt. Everything was fine.”

“Did the girl suspect anything?” John asked.

Sam shook his head. “No. We ran. I’m pretty sure she thinks we just ran, that I took point so I’d shield her. No one even noticed when I left.”

“Did you get any pictures of the scene?” John asked.

They’d gone over these questions a hundred times the night before, and ordinarily Sam might have been annoyed, but he knew this was John’s way of being concerned. “None,” Sam said. “I was only thinking about salt when the poltergeist started getting angry.”

“But you heard the spirit talk?” Dean slid his page of notes over toward Sam. It was a list of everything the poltergeist was purported to have said, but most of it was gibberish.

_Dada dayada dayada Shan tish antish anti Coco rico coco rico Weialala leia wallala leialala Ed un leardas meer - mirror?_

Sam picked up the pen Dean had been clicking incessantly and wrote. 

_Well now that’s done and I’m glad it’s over._

John studied the list. “That doesn’t make any sense. Everything was gibberish and then...English.”

Dean leaned in to study his own scrawl. “Well, you said the spirit was all girl-curvy, right? So that ends the footman theory. See here - coco rico. Maybe she has a thing for chocolate?”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“We’re missing something,” John said. “I know we are.”

Sam scanned the list of gibberish again. “I’m not entirely sure this is actually gibberish. Some of it sounds familiar.”

“Familiar? What have you been smoking?” Dean asked.

Sam reached for his coffee cup, but it was empty. “I’m gonna get a refill, stretch my legs. Maybe it’ll help me think.” As he ambled past the aisles of bookshelves, he pondered over the things that poltergeist had said, the way it had behaved. Something about it had been familiar too. 

The coffee vendor at the bottom of the steps didn’t even ask what Sam wanted, just turned away and began mixing up a triple red-eye.

“Spending a Saturday at the library?” Paris asked. She was standing on the corner, wearing jeans and another blouse. She looked just as pretty as yesterday, but she was herself again, controlled and abrupt.

Sam jumped. “What? Oh. Yeah. Projects to finish and all.” He managed a sorry, tired smile that Dean would have heartily disapproved of. He paid the vendor for the coffee and took a sip.

“I wanted to say thank you for yesterday,” Paris said. “You saved me.”

“You’re welcome,” Sam said. Getting thanked for being in the family business was rare. There was usually screaming and panic and _monsters are real?_ and the Winchesters getting out of town before the cops showed up. 

“I don’t mean in any romantic, heroic, knight-in-shining-armor way,” Paris said quickly. “Just in a very rational way. You behaved rationally more than bravely. I appreciate rationality.”

Sam bobbed his head in acknowledgment. “Is the maid going to be all right?” 

“Broken leg, but she’ll be fine. We have good health coverage on all our staff,” Paris said. 

Health coverage was a pretty foreign concept for Sam. He knew it existed, but he was pretty sure he’d never really had it. Health coverage for hunters was a sturdy needle, silk thread, and a couple of shots of whiskey. “I’m glad.”

Paris studied him for a long moment. “Yesterday, something invisible was flinging photographs off the walls. It pushed a maid down the stairs. How were you so calm?”

Sam shrugged. “I’m rational. Getting away before we could get hurt was the most reasonable course of action.”

“My household is in chaos. My mother has been on an insane quest to prevent any of the staff from filing lawsuits, and she’s making noise about having safety strips installed on all the staircases.” Paris shook her head, exasperated. “She’s completely in denial about what happened with the pictures in the hallway.”

Sam stepped closer to her. She had shadows around her eyes, exhaustion written in the lines of her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Everything is fine. As long as I remain the top of my class and prevent that little Stars Hollow piece of fluff with her big blue eyes from attempting a coup on my throne -”

“You sound pretty stressed out.” Sam eyed her doubtfully.

Paris graced him with another of her searing glares. “Whatever. My house is insane, but that’s normal for the Geller house.”

“I thought you said your family was boring.”

“When insanity is the only frequency, it all becomes white noise.” Paris jammed her hands into her pockets. “So...do you need more pictures, or no? We never did make it out to the garden.” 

Garden. Hyacinths. _They called me the hyacinth girl._

She blushed so faintly Sam thought he was imagining it.

Another sweep of the house couldn’t hurt, but John and Dean might need him as a lookout for another salt-and-burn. “Let me talk to my dad, and I’ll call you,” Sam said. 

“Okay. Just...let me know before five. I think Lupe wants to feed you to death in gratitude for yesterday.” Paris reached for her keys and clicked the remote. Somewhere around the corner, her car chirped.

Sam managed a smile. “I can do that. Good luck with your paper.”

“You, too.” Paris smiled back at him, and she almost looked like the girl from yesterday, the one who’d tossed her hair and made hyacinth references at him. “Remember: give, sympathize, control.”

“You mean give you books,” Sam said.

Paris huffed. “ _Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata._ ” Another line from _The Waste Land_ that was also a quote from an obscure text.

“Right. The _Upanishads_.” Sam lifted his cup of coffee in salute. “Happy writing, Paris.”

“And you, Sam.” She walked away.

Sam trudged up the steps - how many times had he made this journey in the past week? - and forced his mind back to the problem of the poltergeist. Speaking was rare, but gibberish wasn’t uncommon. Sam found himself humming Dean’s tuneless attempt at understanding the gibberish, _Dada, dayada, dayada_ , and he shook his head, laughed at his own silliness. It wasn’t a song. It probably didn’t mean anything, and if it was some sort of _redrum_ thing, they needed more context before they had a snowball’s chance in hell of cracking that cipher.

And then Sam played the words over again in his head.

_Dada, dayada, dayada._

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Sam downed the rest of his coffee in a single gulp and dashed up the stairs. His first stop was the nearest unoccupied computer terminal. He searched quickly, and once he found what he needed he hit the print button. The old librarian was already glaring at him for thievery when he stepped up to the printer, but he tossed down a dollar before he ran back to his table.

“How many cups of coffee did you have?” Dean asked, but Sam cut him off.

“I figured it out.”

John leaned in. “You know who the spirit is?”

Sam nodded. He tapped Dean’s notepaper. “This isn’t gibberish.”

“Then what is it?” Dean’s expression was markedly skeptical.

Sam opened his school notebook and turned it around for his father and brother to read. They scanned the pages, and both of them looked confused.

“It’s a poem,” Dean said.

“I copied it down so I could make notes on it, get the text in my head without damaging a library book. It’s _The Waste Land_.” Sam flipped a few pages forward, hoping Dean didn’t see the note about the scene in the hyacinth garden alluding to lost virginity. “Look at the last lines.”

John and Dean read. Dean sat back, surprised. “The ghost is reciting poetry?”

John reached for his journal. “Seems like it. I’ve never heard of ghosts doing that before. How old is the poem?”

“It was published in 1922, but that’s not the point,” Sam said. “I don’t think we’re dealing with a dead person here.”

“Sammy,” Dean said with exaggerated patience, “ghosts are souls. Souls not in bodies. That equals _dead people_.”

Sam shook his head. “We’re not dealing with a ghost - we’re dealing with a poltergeist. Right?”

John nodded. He looked as skeptical as his older son, but he was willing to give Sam the benefit of the doubt since Sam had solved the mystery of the alleged gibberish. “That’s the working theory so far.”

Sam pushed his printouts across the desk for them to read. “Some poltergeists are angry spirits. But others - there have been hundreds of studies - are manifestations of recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.”

“In English, please,” Dean said.

John scanned the printouts. “You think the poltergeist is being caused by the psychic energy from some stressed out teenager?”

“Not any stressed-out teenager,” Sam said. “Paris.”

“She is the only teenager in the house.” John nodded.

Sam added, “She’s stressed out and upset.”

Dean snorted. “And you’d know this how? She been baring her soul to you?” Then he leered. “She been baring _herself_ to you?”

“Now’s not the time, Dean,” John said.

“Sorry, Dad.”

“Look at the facts - Paris is a student at a very intense, very competitive prep school. As you noticed, she comes from a very strident family.” Sam ticked each item off on his fingers as he listed it. “She has huge self-esteem issues - her own mother made fun of her for not having a real date for her school formal, and she did it in front of strangers. And her family’s breaking apart. Father’s moving out. Do we know why?”

“Not for sure,” Dean said. He leaned in, lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I did hear from Jose, one of the gardeners, while he was on a beer break, that the mister was caught with --”

John sighed. “One of the maids.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Sam said. 

Dean wrinkled his nose. “The poetry doesn’t.”

“Paris has also been obsessing over a paper - about this poem.” Sam jabbed his notebook for emphasis. “She has whole sections of it memorized.”

Dean waggled his eyebrows, and Sam was about ready to shave them off while Dean was asleep. “You two been reciting poetry to each other?”

“Would you leave off?” Sam asked. “Don’t you see how upset this girl is? She’s so upset that her very psychic energy is wreaking havoc in her house.”

Dean fell into sulky silence while John glanced at Sam’s notebook and his research.

“I think Sammy’s right,” John said. “I can’t think of any other explanation. I just...don’t know what to do about it.”

Dean said, “We do what we always do: gank evil.”

“We can’t kill Paris,” Sam said. “She’s not evil, or a witch, or possessed. She’s just a girl.”

“What about her dad?”

John sighed. “I really don’t know. I have to think this over. Maybe call Pastor Jim. Pastors do family counseling all the time.”

“I saw Paris outside while I was getting coffee,” Sam said. “That’s how I figured it all out. She wanted to know if I needed more pictures for my ‘history project’. Do I need more pictures?”

John paged through Sam’s notebook some more. “Poetry sure has changed since I was in school.”

Dean elbowed Sam and leaned in, lowered his voice. “Good work, man. Seriously. I guess occasionally your nerdiness pays off.”

“Thanks, I think,” Sam said.

“I know, right? You actually manage to talk to a chick, and she ends up super crazy.” Dean sighed. 

“She’s not crazy; she’s upset. There’s a difference.” Sam arched an eyebrow at his older brother. “Wouldn’t you be upset if Dad took off with some random chick?”

Dean waved him off. “Oh, please. Dad would never –” 

“When we were in San Diego for Halloween one year and I was five, a woman took pity on us even though we weren’t in costumes and gave us candy. We’d been stuck in the car all day so we were brats, but the candy kept us quiet. Dad was so grateful she’d made us happy for like ten seconds that he smiled at her and agreed to have a cup of coffee with her and you were so mad you actually threw up on her shoes. On purpose. You made yourself throw up because Dad was going on a not-date,” Sam said.

Dean snorted. “I don’t remember that.”

“I do,” Sam said. “That lady screamed bloody murder. If an angry nine-year-old could make himself throw up on command after having eaten nothing more than a cookie all day because he thinks his widowed dad is going out on a date, imagine what a teenage girl whose father’s infidelity splintered her family could do.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Dean glanced at his father. “So...does Sammy need to take one for the team again?”

“Go, Sam,” John said. “Keep your phone on.”

Sam nodded and rose up. “I’ll call Paris.” It was becoming an unsettling refrain.

As the Impala cruised through Paris’s neighborhood, Sam remembered the first time he’d seen the tree-lined avenues, the wrought-iron fences, and the ridiculously secure gates and code boxes. An afternoon breeze stirred the leaves pooled in the gutters, a whirlpool of orange and gold, brown and tan. 

When they reached Paris’s gate, Sam leaned out the window and pressed the intercom button. “Sam Winchester for Paris,” he said, feeling oddly like an Edwardian suitor coming to call on a young lady.

“Hello, Sam,” Lupe said. “Come in! Paris is waiting for you. I made _sopas_ and _flan_ and –”

“Am I invited?” Dean asked, wedging himself out the window to speak into the intercom as well.

Sam swatted him aside. “That sounds wonderful, Lupe. My dad or brother will come pick me up in a couple of hours.”

“ _Bueno_.”

The intercom box chirped, and then the massive gates swung open, guided by invisible hands. The Impala rumbled down the driveway at a crawl. When they reached the front door, Sam climbed out of the car and shouldered his backpack. He still had a canister of salt in his pack, as well as an iron knife. He’d restocked his salt packets, and he had a penknife.

Sam had never entered the house through the front door, and he stared at the giant brass lion-head knockers for a long moment before he dared to reach out.

The front door swung open before he could knock, and there was Paris, having a rapid-fire conversation on her cell phone. She paused and covered the mouthpiece, then said, “Come in, Sam. Do you remember how to get to the garden?”

Sam nodded and stepped into the massive foyer. The ceiling seemed forever away, and crystals from a chandelier rained down from the gothic-vaulted expanse. Paris spun on her heel and vanished down one of the hallways, still speaking at a mile a minute. Sam followed her. After a few moments, he recognized the path and stepped around her, going ahead to give her some privacy. Whoever she was talking to was apparently slacking about a newspaper article, and Sam figured the poor peon didn’t need him listening in on the humiliation. 

The hallway leading out to the garden was swept clear of glass and debris, and the walls were bare of any framed photos. Sam glanced over his shoulder at Paris; she was pacing the short width of the hall and expounding, loudly and at length, her fellow reporter’s inability to spell, use full sentences, or tell a coherent story. 

“It’s not Faulkner – it’s a piece about paving over the parking lot,” she snapped.

Sam decided he’d better go out to the garden and scout out a place for their photo shoot. The flowers came in more varieties and colors than Sam knew existed. He went to lean in and smell a white rose that was pink around the edges, but then a bee buzzed right next to his ear. He backpedaled rapidly. After a few more valiant rounds of dodging bees, Sam found the hyacinths. He dug his camera out of his pack and set about trying to find decent light. Knowing his luck, none of the pictures would turn out. He had to remind himself the pictures didn’t matter.

Sam heard footsteps and jumped, spun around. Paris had sounded pretty upset on the phone. Maybe any upset brought on the poltergeist. He reached for his knife. Paris was walking toward him with a distressingly blank expression. She was no longer on the cell phone.

“Get that parking lot paving story sorted out?” Sam asked. He was alone in a house haunted by the angst of a melodramatic, energetic teenage girl. 

Paris planted herself in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest. Every line in her body screamed defensive anger. 

Sam swallowed hard. “Paris?”

“Your name isn’t really Sam, is it?”

That came out of left field. “What? Of course it is. Why would you think –”

“I just talked to Rory. She said Dean’s last name is Forester and he doesn’t have any brothers at all – he has a little sister, and her name is Clara.” Paris’s face was going from pale to red. 

Sam was completely confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Rory?”

“Dean’s girlfriend,” Paris said. 

Sam shook his head. “Dean doesn’t have a girlfriend. Dean doesn’t have girlfriends. He has one night stands, but –”

“You’re lying to me.” 

“No, I’m not,” Sam said. “Have you ever even met my brother?”

Paris’s eyes narrowed. “This is some elaborate trick, isn’t it? You’re actually Dean, aren’t you? This is revenge for all those times I disagreed with Rory about Tristan –”

Sam took a deep breath. “Paris, you’re not making any sense. Just calm down –”

“I’m making perfect sense. You’re playing stupid to mess with me.” She reached out and grabbed his wrist, turned and yanked him in the direction of the house. Sam let himself be dragged along.

“Paris, please, relax. I’m not playing any trick on you –”

Paris marched him through the halls and up the stairs and, to Sam’s immense horror, to her bedroom. No matter how much a flirt Dean was, as soon as Sam was old enough to notice girls, John had instituted a very strict rule about Sam _treating young ladies respectfully._

“Paris, wait, shouldn’t we have a –” _Chaperone_ was cut off when Paris attempted to rip his arm out of its socket. She frog-marched him across her bedroom – a heavily wood-paneled, four-poster, cream-and-navy affair – and halted him in front of a bookshelf lined entirely with photos, mostly of Paris at various ages wearing an exasperated expression and receiving a plethora of complex awards for an elementary school child.

The picture Paris directed his attention to with another sharp yank to his wrist was of Paris in a lovely dress, leaning away from a smarmy young man, and –

Sam stared. The boy in the picture looked just like him. If he’d actually gone to prom with a date Dean hadn’t seduced. The girl standing beside his clone was pretty and open-faced, petite, and she had the bluest eyes Sam had ever seen.

“See, _Dean?_ That’s you, and your girlfriend Rory.” Paris glared up at him. 

Sam swallowed hard. Was it a shapeshifter? This was impossible. “No, no, that’s not me. My name is Sam Winchester, and my older brother’s name is Dean.” He was speaking on autopilot, in shock. He fumbled for his cell phone. He had to call Dean, tell him a shapeshifter was on the loose in the city.

Paris spun him around and leaned up until they were almost nose-to-nose. “You’ve been lying to me this entire time. All those jokes, and – and reciting lines of poetry at me, and making references to the _hyacinths_ – you were just making fun of me.” 

“No, I’m not,” Sam said.

The drapes on the bed fluttered.

Sam darted a glance at the windows, but they were closed. There was no breeze anywhere in the room. 

“Yes you are. You think I’m stupid Paris Geller, socially retarded Paris Geller who couldn’t get a cute guy to talk to her if it meant her life!” She was practically vibrating with fury.

The picture frames rattled.

“Paris, please,” Sam begged. “Calm down. I’m not lying to you, I promise. Let me show you a picture of me and my brother.” He fumbled for his wallet.

Paris reared up so hard they smacked foreheads. Sam tried to back up and only managed to run into the bookcase. “I can’t believe I fell for it. I’m the smartest person in my entire grade, but apparently I’m just as stupid as every other girl who’s fooled by a pretty face.”

Sam said, “I’m not pretty.” He had to dig past the salt packets to find the pictures of himself and Dean that they’d taken at the photo booth in Roanoke when they were supposed to be posing for new ID shots instead of trying to give each other headlocks. 

“I always knew Rory was naive, and when I saw you at the dance I thought you were a bit of a smart-aleck, but this is an all new low.” Paris moved back enough to gaze right into Sam’s eyes. She was radiating enough fury to level an entire town. 

The bed shook. Sam peered past Paris and saw the entire bed frame shaking. It was starting to drift to the left, and the bedposts were clawing deep gouges into the wood floor.

“Paris, please calm down.” Sam fumbled for a salt packet in his pocket. 

“Calm down? How can I calm down? I have spent the last four days letting you into my life and into my home and you’ve been mocking me this entire time.” Paris’s face was pale again, and her eyes were filled with tears. 

Sam reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Paris, please –”

A book came flying toward her. Sam shoved her sideways, turned so the book glanced off his shoulder.

Paris screamed. “Don’t touch me!” Another book launched toward her. She screamed again.

“Get down!” Sam yelled. He tackled Paris to the carpet, shielding her with his body. On the other side of the room, books were launching themselves off of the shelves, and papers were swirling up off the desk, threatening death by papercut. 

“What’s going on?” Paris demanded, voice muffled against Sam’s t-shirt.

“You freaked out and now the poltergeist is here,” Sam hissed.

“Get rid of it!”

“I can’t until you calm down,” Sam said.

“I’m calm,” Paris bit out.

Paper showered down on them.

“No, you’re not,” Sam said. He dug into his pocket and ripped open one of the packets of salt. He scattered it in the vague direction of the paper chaos. It flagged for a moment, but then the poltergeist redoubled its efforts. 

“I said, _I’m damn well calm!_ ” Paris yelled.

Sam was pretty sure he was partially deaf in one ear, and possibly concussed after every single novel written by William Faulkner landed on his head. He flung out another handful of salt and peered through the typhoon of books and homework in search of his backpack. If only he could get to the canister –

“Who are you?” Paris demanded.

“My name is Sam Winchester, and I’m a little busy right now.” He army-crawled across the floor toward his backpack, fumbled the zipper open. 

Paris levered herself up onto her hands and knees. She barely managed to dodge a flying book. “You’re lying. Tell me your real name.”

“That’s my real name.” Sam felt around for the canister. His fingers closed around cheap cardboard, and relief flooded through him. The poltergeist was shrieking. He thumbed open the spout and crawled back over to Paris. “Hold still, and whatever you do, don’t step outside the circle.”

“What circle?”

Sam began pouring salt. “This circle.”

Paris reared up on her knees, then had to duck another book. “What are you doing to my room?”

The poltergeist was reciting _Death by Water_ , talking about a sailor named Phlebas, a Phoenician; _a current under the sea picked his bones in whispers_. Sam couldn’t believe Paris didn’t recognize her own voice.

“I’m protecting you,” he snarled. He finished the circle and ducked down. Then he reached up and tugged Paris down with him.

She wrenched her elbow out of his grip, then paused. “The papers aren’t hitting us anymore.”

The shrieking, however, had not abated.

“Like I said, I’m protecting you.” Sam wriggled closer to Paris and fished his wallet out of his pocket. “See this? Driver’s license. My name’s Sam Winchester. And this? My high school ID. Also for one Sam Winchester. Right here? This is me and my brother about five months ago. That guy in the photo? Yeah. That’s Dean.”

Paris squirmed closer to him, still instinctively flinching away from the items assaulting the salt barrier, and she poked through the contents of Sam’s wallet. She looked skeptical at the notion of his driver’s license and school ID, but then she got to the photo booth pictures, and she paused.

“I’ve seen this man before.”

“You probably have,” Sam said. “He’s been hauling boxes for your father. He and my dad.”

Paris pulled herself up on her knees and shuffled closer to Sam. “So...you’re really not Dean Forester.”

“Never met the guy,” Sam said. “I’d tell you how freaked out I am about my Connecticut clone, but we have a more pressing problem.” He nodded in the direction of the homework whirlpool. A misty figure had coalesced in the middle of the flying papery death, and she was rocking back and forth, muttering in angry German.

Paris shuffled closer to him. “Is that it? Is that what’s been pushing people down the stairs? Is that what attacked us?”

“I think so,” Sam said. “Take a deep breath, and please, calm down.”

“How am I supposed to be calm?” Paris demanded. “There’s some kind of ghost tearing up my homework! My paper is due on Monday.”

Sam was the one who took a few deep breaths. “Paris, I am begging you, just close your eyes and find your center while I call for help.”

Paris squeezed her eyes shut and started hyperventilating.

Sam dug his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial. 

Dean answered. “Sit rep?”

“Get here. Now. I’m under assault.”

“Assault? Do you mean –”

“I mean I’m in Paris’s room in a circle of salt while a poltergeist hurls copies of _The Sound and the Fury_ at us.”

“We’ll be there.” Dean’s voice went muffled while he called out to John, and then he was back on. “Do you have any weapons?”

“Not that will do any good, because Paris is very upset,” Sam said.

“I’m not upset. I’m finding my center!”

The poltergeist let out an earsplitting shriek.

Dean swore in Sam’s other ear. “Dude, calm her down.”

“How, Dean? I’m terrible with girls. As you so frequently remind me.”

“I told you charming the ladies was an important hunter skill,” Dean said. Sam could hear the rumble of the Impala in the background and John swearing at the traffic lights. “Can you give her a massage or something? That usually helps chicks relax.”

“I’m pretty sure if I try to touch her, she’ll rip my arms off.”

“Dammit, Sammy. Does she meditate? Do yoga? Yoga means flexible.”

“Dean! You’re not helping.”

“Then improvise. Gotta go.” And the line went dead.

Sam shoved his cellphone back into his pocket and turned to Paris, who was an unhealthy shade of red. “Paris, you’re not breathing deeply, you’re hyperventilating. Open your eyes and look at me.”

She obeyed, and immediately her color started to return to normal. “Was that your brother?”

“He’s coming to help rescue us,” Sam said.

“You deal with angry ghosts often?”

“We need more salt,” Sam said. 

Paris reached for her cell phone. “I can call the kitchen, ask them to deliver some more.”

Sam lunged, caught her wrist. “No. Don’t get anyone else involved. The maids are the ones who’ve been getting hurt.”

Paris nodded, eyes wide. Then she turned. “Is the ghost speaking _Eliot?_ ”

Sam nodded. “Are you relaxing? Calming down?”

Paris tilted her head, listening. Sam watched books flying out of the corner of his eyes, and was it just his imagination, or was the poltergeist starting to look genuinely corporeal?

Paris began to recite along with the poltergeist, “ _‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart / Under my feet. After the event / He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’ / I made no comment. What should I resent?’_ ”

Sam reached out tentatively, placed a hand on hers. “ _’On Margate Sands. / I can connect / Nothing with nothing. / The broken finger-nails of dirty hands. / My humble people who expect –_ ”

“ _Nothing,_ ” Paris said with him.

Around them, some of the books started to drop to the floor.

Sam smiled, cautious, hopeful. “You feeling better, Paris?”

She took a deep breath – a genuine deep breath, not a start on hyperventilation – and managed a stressed-out approximation of a smile. “I think so.”

Several errant volumes of Plutarch were still hovering mid-air, but most of the notes had shuffled themselves down to the carpet. “You sure?”

Paris nodded. She edged closer to him, peered at him intently. “You’re really not Dean Forester?”

“Cross my heart,” Sam said, because no Winchester hoped to die.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“And your departure from town is imminent?”

“As soon as we can get out of this salt circle.”

Paris leaned in and kissed him.

Sam closed his eyes and kissed her back. She tasted like peppermint, cool and fresh, and Sam reached up, curled a hand around the nape of her neck. Her hair tangled around his fingers, silky soft, and Paris moaned against his mouth.

“Sammy!”

Someone was calling Sam’s name.

He ignored it.

Paris had a hand on his shoulder, slid her fingers cross his collarbone and up his throat. 

Someone called Sam’s name again. It sounded kind of like his dad.

“Sammy! Are you all right?” 

And then Sam realized.

_Dad._

Sam pulled back, horrified, and saw his father and Dean standing in the doorway, guns drawn, salt canisters in hand.

John pulled up short. “Well, weren’t you two like shrapnel.”

Dean let out a low whistle. “Sammy. Thought you said you were in danger.”

Sam cast a wild look at Paris’s room. Books and papers were scattered across every available surface. But there was no sign of a poltergeist.

Paris, who had one hand pressed to her mouth, sat back on her haunches. “I’m calm. The angry ghost is gone.”

John sighed and sank against the door frame. “Yes. The angry ghost is gone.”

“Nice job, Sammy.” Dean grinned. He waved a hand. “Hey. You must be Paris.”

“You must be Dean,” she said and stood up, dusted salt off her jeans.

Sam knew he was blushing furiously. He rose to his feet, took a cautious step beyond the salt line. “You want help cleaning your room?”

“No. I’ll call some of the staff,” Paris said. “Except I can’t let any of them touch my notes.”

Sam stooped to pick up his backpack, stow the half empty salt canister. He still had the camera in his pocket. “Okay. Is there anything I can do...?”

Paris started toward him, then paused and glanced uncertainly at the doorway.

Dean cast Sam a significant look and saluted, turned away from the door. A moment later, he returned and tugged John with him. 

“Sam,” Paris said.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for saving me from the angry ghost. Again.”

How Sam managed to speak, he didn’t know. “You’re welcome.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I apologize for my less than rational behavior.”

Paris laughed softly. “The day Sam Winchester was heroic without being rational. _London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down._ ”

Sam reached out, brushed a strand of hair out of Paris’s eyes. “ _Shantih shantih shantih._ ”

Paris closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes. I think I finally feel peace.”

It was Sam’s turn to smile. “I’m glad.”

They both looked around the room, at the scattered books and papers and mess of salt. 

“Sammy,” John said from somewhere down the hall.

Paris jumped. “He’s got the voice of a drill sergeant.”

“He’s an ex-marine.” Sam smiled, embarrassed. 

“They teach ghost-hunting in the marines?”

“He served in Vietnam.”

Paris nodded. “Well, Sam Winchester, good luck with your history paper.”

“Good luck with your English paper.”

“I suppose if I lose my copy of the poem, I can ask the angry ghost.” Paris smiled and, after the resulting silence stretched out for too long, she knelt down and began picking up some of her notes.

“Best leave the ghost be, and try to remain calm and relaxed at all times.” Sam knelt to help her. Their fingers brushed, and Sam would have pulled away, but he was about to leave town, so screw it. He tangled his fingers with hers and leaned in, pressed their mouths together. The contact was warm, brief, chaste, and felt like goodbye. When Sam pulled back, Paris had her eyes closed, her face smooth and blank and, finally, at peace.

He brushed a strand of hair off of her brow. “Be cool, Paris.”

“You too, Sam,” she murmured. “Now go. Before your dad brings a platoon of marines to rescue you from my devious clutches.”

Sam nodded and stood up, but then he paused and searched her gaze. “You sure you’re okay?”

“For now. And if I get stressed out, I’ll think of you.” Paris gathered her notes and rose up, walked Sam to her door. When he stepped into the hallway, he saw Dean flirting with Lupe and John leaning against the banister, looking exhausted.

“Ready to go, son?” John asked.

Sam nodded. “Yes, sir.” His permission was superfluous.

Dean leaned in and pressed quick kiss to Lupe’s cheek, and she pressed a large brown paper sack into his hands. 

“Food for the road?” Sam asked.

Lupe beamed at him and then pinched his cheek. Dean failed to hide a snicker behind the paper bag.

“Thank you for looking out for Miss Paris,” she said.

“So that’s what we’re calling it these days?” Dean asked, and John planted an elbow in his ribs hard enough to wind him.

“You’re welcome,” Sam said quietly. He headed for the stairs, and John followed him. 

Dean hung behind, trading a few last witticisms with Lupe.

Just before they reached the bottom stair, John reached out, caught Sam by the shoulder.

Sam turned. “Dad?”

“You did a good job, son,” John said quietly. “You saved that girl.”

Sam swallowed hard. “Thank you, sir.”

“I’m glad you understand why we do what we do.” John nodded in the direction of Paris’s room. “She’s a smart girl, and she’s been given every opportunity in life to go to a fancy college and run the national bank, but you – you got something else. And I think you finally get it.”

Sam ducked his head. “Yes, sir.”

John clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s move out.”

Hartford, Connecticut in the fall was the stuff of nineteenth century novels, a sea of leaves all the colors of Halloween dancing in the gutters like waves rising and falling in a chill breeze. Sam looked out the window at the tree-lined avenues, the wrought iron fences, and tried not to let his breath fog the glass. Dean was asleep in the back seat in a food coma after having devoured the lion’s share of Lupe’s provisions. John was at the wheel, singing quietly along to something whispering on the radio, and all Sam could hear was _dada, dayada, dayada._

He reached into his pocket and curled his hands around the cheap disposable camera and promised himself he’d find a one-hour photo place in Hershey, Pennsylvania after they were settled in at another motel. Once the sidewalks had faded into billboards and the interstate, Sam closed his eyes and wondered about Paris, about going somewhere like Harvard or Yale or Stanford. As he fell asleep, he dreamed of a world where kisses didn’t need salt circles.


End file.
